3/10/16

In the field, Rosario has shown
good instincts and a plus arm, giving hope that he can stick at short. Based on
his footwork, he probably fits better as a third baseman, but he has the arm
strength to make up for plays his feet couldn’t with an average arm. He has a
similar defensive future to Corey Seager in my
opinion, where he could probably play an average shortstop in the early going
before transitioning to third.

Add to the mix a strong feel
for putting the bat on the ball and at least above-average speed, and the
excitement around Rosario starts to really make sense. The power is the
farthest away of his tools, but I’m more confident in his athleticism getting
him there than most young hitters with untapped raw power. He has room to
improve his plate discipline, but again, it comes back to his youth relative to
the opposing pitching. There’s enough promise at the plate to give him some
leeway as he starts to mature.

Mack – Rosario has
now played three full seasons for the Mets past the DSL teams. His lifetime
stat line is: .257/.303/.350/.653. He’s only hit five home runs in 903 official
at-bats. He also has only 52 errors in 318 plate appearances.

His game has a
way to go but let’s not forget that he’s going to play AA ball this season at
the ripe old age of 20.

In
2015, the top 50 players in baseball were responsible for roughly 28% of the
total on-field value created by players yet received only 10% of total
salaries, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of player performance,
salary and team payroll data.

Player value was quantified
using the Wins Above Replacement statistic (WAR), which estimates how many more
wins each player was worth than a league-average replacement player, as
calculated by the website Fangraphs.

By contrast, the 50
highest-paid players received 29% of total salaries yet produced only 11% of
the total on-field value created. Never in the sport’s free-agency era have so
many players appeared to be either vastly

Mack – This isn’t
going away as long as newspapers have interns in their offices that can dig up
stat shit like this.

This reminds me
so much of the Republican establishment now trying to jockey around the
inevitable nomination of Donald Trump ( their eggs were in the Bush basket,
Cruz was supposed to be the outside bad guy, and Trump was still supposed to be
running his hotels).

Minimal salaries
and ‘years under control’ is how the baseball system works. Take that away and
you take away what separates what makes a good team a better one.

I wish these guys
would back off and leave this issue to the individual agents.

"It's the first time in a
long time, and it's so incredibly powerful," Piazza said. "This whole
year for me has been so euphoric. It's such an honor to be put in the Hall of
Fame, but it's also the amount of people who have reached out and given me
their good wishes. When you come here and you see the history and you see the
exhibits -- the players you played against and with as a kid -- it all circles
back here today."

Mets vs. Yankees on TV on Wednesday –

Different
coverage today on Mack’s Mets because game is on national TV.

Jacob deGrom looks just fine in the first
inning, turning a quality DP and ending the inning with a backdoor fastball.
Gives up leadoff single in the second… then third hit to Chris Parmelee throwing only 92-93… strikes
out Cesar Puello… ground rule double and
single in third produce first Yankee run… 3-IP, 1-ER, 5-H, 91-93 fastball, 2-K,
0-BB

DeGrom - “I threw a ball
halfway up the backstop, and that wasn’t what I wanted to do. That’s my second
time facing hitters. I threw the one live BP. And the other one got scratched.
So I was just getting out there and getting the feel for things. You get a
little amped up when somebody steps in the box.”

Curtis Granderson leads off the first with a single… Yoenis Cespedes also singled
in the first, but Granderson went down in a double play…

A rare base running error by Alejandro De Aza ends the second… ran off third base on botched ground ball to
pitcher… you don’t get charged an error on a play like that but you should…

We should all root for Rivera...but he's NOT "opening eyes".... there will not be an AHA Moment....he'll trudge and trudge and wait..... then three guys will get hurt...he'l;l get an ab.....and a start...and another..... before you know it, he'll be starting his 3rd world series at 2b!!!!...

I did an article last fall looking for a comp to TJ Rivera - I thought a reasonably good one was Jeff Keppinger. Unlike Satin the Strikeout Prone, TJ was closer to Kepp in a stingy strikeout rate. Kepp did OK in the bigs, too.